Page 2 of What I Like About You

“Girl, we don’t have to share a bathroom,” Antwan said, sticking his head into her room.

“What?”

“My room looks just like this, en suite and all.”

“Okay, maybe you were right. Maybe we should move in.”

* * *

It had beena long but good day for Dalton Sutherland aboard the Brown Eyed Girl, one of the four catamarans that made up the Indigo Royal’s fleet, along with the Runnin’ Down a Dream, the Don’t Stop Believin’, and the Livin’ On a Prayer. Despite being the newest addition to the fleet, the Brown Eyed Girl was easily his favorite of the group. The other three were great, and he enjoyed sailing them as well. But the Brown Eyed Girl was special. Not that he would ever admit that out loud. Nor would he admit that the reason it was his favorite was that the boat was part of the happily ever after for his friends Kyle and Drea. His inner romantic was inner for a reason.

A couple of months back, after being promoted to marina manager, Kyle Egan had offered Dalton the job of full-time captain on the Runnin’ Down a Dream, the boat the two of them had been sailing together ever since Dalton had arrived at the Indigo Royal just over three years earlier. He’d turned it down, however, opting to remain Kyle’s first mate and right hand guy as he took over sailing the Brown Eyed Girl. Dalton was honored that Kyle offered him the job, however being the full-time captain was more responsibility than he wanted to take on. Had he wanted a job where he had to be responsible all the time, he would have stayed in Atlanta and worked for the family empire.

Dalton punched his unique ID into the keypad that unlocked his suite in the staff dorms on the Indigo Royal property. Suite-style rooms were usually reserved for department managers, married couples, or even simply those with more seniority than his measly three years afforded him, but since the dorm wasn’t completely full and the suite’s previous occupant had declared he was to inherit it, no one really seemed to care. Of course, no one was going to argue with Leona Filipe, their head of housekeeping, either. What she said goes. So when she moved into one of the bungalows with her retired pro-athlete boyfriend, Cullen Cruz, while he renovated a house for her, and declared that Dalton was taking over the suite, there wasn’t much room for argument. The staff dorm was the original guest rooms from when the Indigo Royal had been another resort back in the late seventies and early eighties. The building was then renovated to dorms when the Quinlan brothers bought the property. Every room included a kitchenette in addition to the bed, desk, couch, and en suite bathroom. The suite-style rooms also had a separate sitting area with a couch, chair, and coffee table.

Sinking down into the chair, Dalton felt his phone start to vibrate in his swim trunks. He reached into his pocket and looked at the screen, shocked to see the name that was flashing across it.

“Chet Newsome, as I live and breathe,” Dalton drawled into the phone, greeting his childhood buddy.

“Tripp! Dude, I was not expecting you to answer,” his buddy’s voice called out. The sound of wind in the background made Dalton wonder where on earth he was.

“You caught me at a good time,” Dalton said. It’d been quite a while since he’d talked to Chet, or anyone back home for that matter. Maybe he needed to be a little better about answering his phone now and then. “Are you in a tunnel or something?”

“No, sorry, hold on,” Chet said. There was a brief pause and then suddenly, the noise stopped. “Sorry, in the car, had the window down. How are you, man?”

“Livin’ the dream. Island life leaves little to complain about,” Dalton answered. “You still at the bank?”

“Sure am. Got promoted about six months ago, have an even bigger team under me now. Climbing the ladder, just like we always dreamed.”

Just like you always dreamed, Dalton thought. “Good to hear. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of hearing your sorry voice?”

“I just wanted to know when you were landing back in the ATL. Not sure if you kept your condo or not, so if you need a realtor, let me know and I’ll get you hooked up,” Chet said. “Oh, and Emily is going to want to have you for dinner as soon as you get back. I promise that I won’t let her shove any of her friends on you, at least not at first, but dude, I must say, she’s got some hot friends.”

“Chet, I don’t know where you got your info from, but I’m not moving back,” Dalton said, confused by his buddy’s assumption. “I told y’all when I left, I was done with that city and everyone in it.”

“Shit, man, I knew it had to be too good to be true. Tripp Sutherland, making his return.”

“Who told you I was moving back?” he asked.

“I saw Jonah at the club last week, and he said that you were coming back to take over Big D’s latest venture,” Chet said casually. As if “the club” had just been a regular hangout and not one of the most exclusive, members-only organizations in the south. Archer’s Green was almost as exclusive as Augusta National, with only about four hundred members at any given time. “He was super tight-lipped about the details, but held nothing back about saying you were to be the man in charge.”

“Chet, you know I haven’t spoken to Jonah in like, ten years, right? And how the fuck would he know what is going on with Southland Holdings?” Dalton asked, a little annoyed at the use of Jonah's name.

“Seriously? You really haven’t spoken to him since high school? I figured y’all were past that with him working for Big D.”

“Jonah is working for my father?” Dalton sat up straight at this revelation. That couldn’t be right. Jonah had never shown any interest in Southland Holdings, had always said that was Dalton's world. Then again, after everything they had done to his family, he would put nothing past the Davenports.

“Damn, Tripp, you’re more out of the loop than I thought.”

“Told you, left it behind me,” he answered, sounding a lot more unbothered than he actually felt about the whole thing. This was a lot of news to drop in one small conversation. A lot more than he wanted to know about the inner workings of everything back home.

“Well, you might want to call Big D and get it straightened out, since they seem to be expectin’ your ass back here,” Chet threw out.

“Yeah. Chet, sorry to cut you off, man, but I got a thing I got to get to. Great to hear from you, dude.”

“You too, Tripp. If you change your mind, call me. I’ll get you hooked up.”

Dalton hung up the phone and slumped back in his chair, letting out a long, deep breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. He knew that everything he’d left behind would eventually find him in St. Thomas. He’d somehow thought, however, that when it hadn’t happened within the first six months of his leaving, that he’d have a lot longer than this. The question was, just how much longer could he ignore it?